Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/110

Rh 94 L Y C L Y C the pass leading into the interior. Sidyma, on the slope of Mount Cragus, seems also to have borne the name of the mountain, as was also the case with Massicytus, if there was really a city of the name at all Myra, one of the most important cities of Lycia, occupied the entrance of the valley of the Andriacus ; on the coast between this and the mouth of the Xanthus stood Antiphellus, while in the interior, at a short distance, were found Phellus, Cyaneae, and Candyba. In the alluvial plain formed by the outlets of the rivers Arycandus and Limyrus stood Limyra, and encircling the same bay the three small towns of Rhodiapolis, Corydalla, and Gagae. Arycanda com manded the upper valley of the river of the same name. On the east coast stood Olympus, one of the cities of the league, though it could never have been more than a small town, while Phaselis, a little farther north, which was a much more important place, never belonged to the Lycian league, and appears to have always maintained an independent position. We have thus in all twenty-one towns of which the sites have been ascertained, but the occurrence of other considerable ruins, to which no names can be attached with any certainty, confirms the statement of Pliny as to the great number of the Lycian towns. The cold upland district of the Milyas appears never to have contained any town of importance. Podalia seems to have been its chief place. Between the Milyas and the Pamphylian Gulf was the lofty mountain range of Solyma, which was supposed to derive its name from the Solymi, a people mentioned by Homer in connexion with the Lycians and the story of Bellerophon. No such name was known in historical times as an ethnic appellation, but they were supposed by some writers to be the same people with the Milyans, while others regard them as a distinct people of Semitic origin. It was in the flank of this mountain, near a place called Deliktash, that the celebrated fiery source called the Chimaera, which gave rise in ancient times to so many fables, was found. It has been visited in modern times by Captain Beaufort, Messrs Spratt and Forbes, and other travellers, but is merely a stream of inflammable gas issuing from crevices in the rocks, such as are found in several places in the Apennines. No traces of recent volcanic action exist in Lycia. Few parts of Asia Minor were less known in modern times than Lycia until a very recent period. Captain Beaufort was the first to visit several places on the sea-coast, and the remarkable rock- hewn tombs of Telmessus had been already described by Dr Clarke, but it was Sir Charles Fellows who first discovered and drew atten tion to the extraordinary richness of the district in ancient remains, especially of a sepulchral character. His two visits to the country, in 1838 and 1840, were followed by a more regular expedition sent out by the British Government in 1842 for the purpose of transport ing to England the valuable monuments now in the British Museum, while Lieutenant (now Admiral) Spratt and Professor Edward. Forbes explored the interjor of the district, and laid down its physical features on an excellent map. The monuments thus brought to light are certainly among the most interesting of any that have been discovered in Asia Minor, and, while showing the strong influence of Greek art, both in their architecture and sculp ture, prove also the existence of a native architecture of wholly distinct origin, especially in the rock-cut tombs, some of which present a strange resemblance to our English Elizabethan style, while others distinctly evince their derivation from the simple construction of the mud and timber built cottages of the natives. But the theatres that are found in almost every town, some of them of very large size, are alone sufficient to attest the pervading influence of Greek civilization ; and this is confirmed by the sculptures, which are for the most part wholly Greek. None of them, indeed, can be ascribed to a very early period, and hardly any trace can be found of the influence of Assyrian or other Oriental art. One of the most interesting results of these recent researches has been the discovery of numerous inscriptions in the native language of the country, and written in a character, or at least an alphabet, before unknown, and which appears to have been peculiar to Lycia. A few of these inscriptions are fortunately bilingual, in Greek and Lycian, which has afforded a clue to their partial interpretation, and the investigations of Mr Daniel Sharpe in the first instance, followed by the more mature essays of Moritz Schmidt and Savelsberg, have established the fact that the Lycian language belonged to the great Aryan family, and had close affinities with the Zend. The alpha bet in which the inscriptions are written is obviously derived from the Greek, no less than twenty-four of the letters being identical, while most of the additional letters appear to have been invented in order to express vowel sounds which were not distinguished in Greek. None of the Lycian inscriptions, however, any more than the sculptures, can lay claim to a high antiquity. It is remarkable that the Greek alphabet upon which it was founded appears not to have been the Ionic alphabet which was in general use in Asia Minor, but was more akin to the Doric alphabet in use in the Felo- pounese. For these modern researches see A Journal written during an Excursion in Asia Minor, London, 1831), by Sir Charles Fellows; An Account of Discoveries in Lycia, by the same author, London, 1841 ; Travels in Lycia, Milyas, and the Cibyratis, by Lieutenant Spratt and Professor Edward Forbes, 2 vols., London, 1847 ; Moritz Schmidt, Neue Lykische Studien, Jena, 1869 ; Savelsberg, Beitrage zur Entzifferung der Lykischen Sprachdenkmaler, Bonn, 1874. (E. H. B.) LYCOPHRON was a Greek poet who nourished at Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-47 B.C.). He was born atChalcis in Euboea, and was the son of Lycus. He wrote a number of tragedies, forty-six or sixty-four, and Suidas gives the title of twenty of them. Only a few lines are preserved of these works, which gained him a place in the Pleiad of Alexandrian tragedians. He was entrusted by Ptolemy with the task of arranging the comedies in the Alexandrian library, and out of this work grew his treatise Trcpl Koj/^wSuxs, in at least eleven books. It seems to have treated of the history of comedy, of the lives of the comic poets, and of various topics subsidiary to the proper understanding of their poems, but nothing has been preserved of the work. One of his poems called Cassandra, containing 1474 lines of iambic, has been pre served entire. It is in the form of a prophecy uttered by Cassandra, and relates the later fortunes of Troy and of the Greek and Trojan heroes. References to various events of mythic and of later time are introduced, and the poem ends with a reference to Alexander the Great, who was to unite Asia and Europe in his world-wide empire. The style, as be fits a prophecy, is so enigmatical as to have pro cured for Lycophron, even among the ancients, the title of the. &quot;obscure&quot; (6 orKoreivos). The poem is evidently in tended to display the writer s knowledge of obscure names and uncommon myths ; it is full of unusual words of doubtful meaning gathered from the older poets, along with many long-winded compounds coined by the author. It has none of the qualities of poetry, and was probably written not for the enjoyment of the public but as a show piece for the Alexandrian school. It was very popular in the Byzantine period, and was read and commented on very frequently ; the collection of scholia by I. and J. Tzetzes is very valuable, and the MSS. of the Cassandra are numerous. A few neat and well-turned lines which have been preserved from Lycophron s tragedies show a much better style ; they are said to have been much ad mired by Menedemus of Eretria, although the poet had ridiculed him in a satyric drama. Lycophron is also said to have been a skilful writer of anagrams, a reputation which does not speak highly for his poetical character. Two passages of the Cassandra, 1446-50 and 1226-82, in which the career of the Roman people and their universal empire are spoken of, could evidently not have been written by an Alexan drian poet of 250 B.C. Hence it has been maintained by Niebuhr and others that the poem was written by a later poet mentioned by Tzetzes, but the opinion of Welcker is generally counted more probable, that these paragraphs are a later interpolation : a pro phetic poem is peculiarly liable to have additions inserted, and the Roman rule was the most natural subject to add. See Welcker, Griech. Trag. ; Konze, DC Lycophronis Didionc ; and Bernhardy s and other histories of Greek literature. LYCOPODIUM. This and Selaginella are the two chief genera of the order Lycopodiacex or club mosses. They are flowerless herbs, and mostly creeping ; but during the period of the development of coal plants members of this